2 Shorts That Went Nowhere

(These were drafted on 6/17/07 and forgotten, because they were going nowhere.)

Love is like a bruise. You nearly always get it when you're not looking - especially when you're not looking.

Love bruises. Love is bruises.

Love appears like a bruise, like when you misjudge the distance between yourself and the object you are trying to avoid running into but manage to anyway. Love is the bruise that aches and also the one that doesn't ache which you eventually forget about. Sometimes love is the multi-hued shiner that leaves you awed and a little freaked out; sometimes it is so ugly you wish for it to go away. Of course, it only goes away when it's ready, not when you wish of it. But when Love leaves, it leaves bruises.

I have bruises. I get them all the time, walking into things, hitting things, getting hit by things. They are all accidental; I guess I misjudge. A lot.

:::

I never developed my favorite snapshot of her. I cannot remember when I took it, but it is my favorite.

In it, she is posed on the couch, one arm flung over her head, grasping the headrest, her head resting in the crook of her arm. I am also in the picture, she is looking down at me, intently. Her ass rests at the edge of the seat, her knees apart; one leg is slung over my shoulder, foot pointed, toes running up and down my back, her other leg folded, heel resting against a buttock. My cheek rests against the inside of her thigh, my hair blanketing her knee and shin.

I never developed the photo because I never took it.

Sometimes, late at night, before nodding off, I wonder if she were even real. Maybe I had imagined her all this time.

No. I have a mental snapshot of her, of us, have I not?

And my body is a diary of her and of us, it remembers things that my mind cannot recall, things my memory no longer is a hundred percent sure of: My cheek remembers the silken pillow of her inner thigh, my back the callouses on her foot, my tongue her body in entirety, her essence.

My eyes are twin lenses that captured a single image of her and me. Single, meaning 'one'; one, meaning no 'her' no 'me', one meaning only 'us'.

It is my favorite snapshot, but I never could develop it.

untitled

i would like for you to hurt me again
in every which way you can
slash me scar me bleed me dry
prick me bruise me make me cry
go on damnit
won't you try

send me back down the obsidian abyss
let me partake of the painful bliss
slash me scar me bleed me dry
prick me bruise me make me cry
if i begged you
will you try

artisans of hurt my patron saints of pain
anoint me with your stinging balm again
slash me scar me bleed me dry
prick me bruise me make me cry
will you my pleas
now deny

12 July 2007

your knee almost brushing mine
your hand clamped firmly
(but very gently) on my arm
your head bent within inches
of my wrist
you and i were there
but were both elsewhere

i watched you carve
with a single pulsating needle
my wrist
breaking skin
drawing minscule specks of red
wiping them away

what did it feel like?
exactly as it was
the methodical shredding of epidermis
then scraping it raw away
again and again

it felt good
really good

for a moment
you discovered me
had skinned me
and laid bare
the real me
the raw raw core

but in a blink
i was gone again
thinking
this doesn't pain me
as terribly as
my heart does
then i realized
nothing would

you hurt me
in the best possible way
ferrying me down Lethe
allowing me a drink
from wounded waters
for a moment
i forgot to remember

did it hurt
you later asked
with such sincerity and empathy
i wished i could tell you where
i really hurt

cradlesong

come sit by the tidepool
let cool your burning feet
the day is done
the night has come
it's now the time for sleep

come rest your sleepy head
let close your heavy eyes
the night is dark
the sky is stark
but for the fireflies

come dream of wond'rous things
let soar your wingéd mind
there's naught to fear
the moon is here
your heart's the star that shines

[sɔl]

the mass of gases that burns white hot
(not fire not a great ball of fire at all)
a star in orbit
its closest companion
57,910 kilometers away
the fleet-footed ψυχοπομπός
(who created the Συριγξ?)

it will one day consume itself
take its curtain call
in the loveliest of dresses
spectrum of light
it will expand and shed its layers
until finally
the curtains fall
lights dim
and its scorching stellar core
slowly cooling
slowly fading

once hazardous to gaze upon
when dimmed
will not be looked for

kill me before i die

kill me before i die
kill me before i die
kill me and still me
when i take my last sigh

kill me before i die
fill me with soil
where my soul once lie
till me and drill me dry

kill me before i die
kill me and kill me
and leave me to dry
chill me and hang me high

kill me before i die
will me to cry
for this sorry life
but kill me before i die

kill me before i die
kill me before i die
kill me and chill me
and still my last sigh

sē wrecca

tonight i'm a wretch, a wrecca;
the Wanderer, exiled, alone,
anhaga, solitary one, modcearig,
must for a long time
hreran mid hondum        hrimcealde sæ
to traverse the path of exile.        Wyrd bið ful aræd!
what is my wyrd?
that ic sceolde ana / mine ceare cwiþan?
not only in eorle, it is a noble custom
that i too follow, that i should fæste binde
my ferðlocan and fiercely guard my hordcofan.
        Yet:
Ne mæg werig mod        wyrde wiðstondan.
i, the Wanderer, modsefan         minne sceolde
feterum sælan.
is this my wyrd: that sorg ond slæð        samod ætgædre
earmne anhogan        oft gebindað?

tonight
a-lone night of not-lonely nights
tonight

i wish someone were here
to pick me up and hold me
and tell me everything will be
all right; everything will be all
right, promise, really, promise.

because i'm so scared, because i'm
terrified; everything has fallen into place
and what had seemed to be right then is now
all wrong, awry, askew. if i asked you,
would you promise it will all turn out
all right in the end?

would you pick me up and hold me
and tell me everything will be
all right; everything will be all
right, promise, really, promise?

seven hundred and thirty since

this
is a lie: i'm not lying to you

this
is not a lie: i'm lying to myself

what lives we live serving one god
and worshipping another

the f-words
four lettered
f for four
f for Fear
f for Free

praying to be free
speaking in fear

fear
must be why you disappear inside
your labyrinth of ambiguous lexicon
      & clever word-play
& try to lose me with sudden twists
      & turns

because you are an open book
whose pages are crammed - top to
      bottom, left to right,
      verso & recto -
with ancient hieroglyphs & pictograms
the basso-rilievo of Morse code
alphabets of varied tongues
      (with marginalia of your own
        scrawl)

hoping to be free
not-speaking in fear

(I have a crush on you.
  I know it’s ironic, but it’s true -
  Unfortunately - that after you
  Have upped and gone away
  My heart begins to stray
  From me and totter after you.)

f for Folly
the fear of folly
to be free of folly

so we murder hope
   four-lettered
   not an f-word
   but more profane
   because it lies
and bury the corpse deep as we can

but the rain ...

floats hope
hope floats
by the virtue of its fricative birth
hope never falls
the way we do
skinned elbows and knees
blood and bruises
(ex)plosive pain

we fear hope
because hope does not fear us
does not fear folly
we fear hope
because hope is free

not-speaking
we hope to be free
to be free of folly
      to be free
      of the fear
      of hope?

what folly, then, to fear!

the folly we fear
is the folly of fear
not hope

and the rain cleanses hope

resurrect hope
hope
and have hope
possess it
it willingly belongs to you

Now that you’ve read through the list,
I’ve a question for you, and it is this:
if these are all that I should be -
do you think you could love me?

(but it isn’t easy
  beneath the stiff blank mask of
        forced ignorance & strained
        nonchalance
  i wear because i too
  fear)

I have a crush on you.

set hope free
      it will be a folly
      not to
and hope will free
have hope

hope

this
is a lie: i'm not lying to you

this
is not a lie: i'm lying to myself